A Song for Julia

seventeenth birthday. The last time I had one with my family before everything completely fell apart. My birthday falls three days after Christmas, which used to make December the best month of the year, and now makes it the worst. But my seventeenth? It wasn’t bad.
    For one thing, school was out. Lana, my best friend, came over, and we spent Friday night watching bootleg first run movies from the States, eating chocolate, and laughing. Lana’s parents were Australian diplomats, and we used to spend a lot of time joking with each other about the differences in our countries, in the way we talked. Not so different from Jack and Tony, though somehow I couldn’t imagine them stabbing each other in the back and ruining each other’s lives.
    I shivered. It took me a long time to reconstruct my life, secretly, after what Harry did to me. Lana had been there. She knew how hard it was. She knew how delicate it was. And when the time came, it seemed like nothing at all for her to sweep the rug out from under me and bring my life crashing back down again.
    I struggled to bring myself mentally back to the present. I didn’t think anyone really noticed, until I saw Crank looking at me strangely. I spread my arms and raised my eyebrows as if to say, “What?” and he looked away.
    The one elephant in the room that no one mentioned was Sean’s reaction to his mother. Or rather, lack of reaction. Through the night so far, he’d not responded to her at all. Not one word. And I could see it was slowly killing her inside. Even when she smiled or laughed, I could see the sadness in her eyes. Profound sadness.
    Finally we got to the gifts. Crank had gotten him a couple of video games, and his dad bought him more comics. Tony and Mrs. Doyle both brought accessories for electronics kits. From the way he set them aside, I got the feeling that was an interest that had passed its time. His eyes opened wide when he opened my gift: a figurine of a character in the manga I’d seen him reading.
    “Is that Rei Ayanami?” he asked.
    Jack and Margot both looked puzzled.
    “Yes,” I answered.
    “Why her?” he asked.
    “Um … well … because she’s a little different and isolated. But also a hero. And even though she starts out very isolated, she comes out of her shell. Which is something I’m trying to learn how to do.”
    He put the figurine in his pocket and looked relatively close to me, like somewhere over my shoulder, and said, in a very formal tone of voice, “Thank you very much.”
    I swallowed and took a deep breath. Somehow that moment meant a lot to me. And that’s when I realized that everyone in the room was staring at me. Crank, in particular, gave me such an intense look it made me shiver. I couldn’t tell if it was love or hate, but whatever it was, it was scary.
    Jack passed over a small box. “And this is from your mother.”
    Sean reached out and took it in his hand and slowly weighed it. Then, without a word, he set it to the side. Without unwrapping it.
    “Sean,” Jack said.
    “I don’t want it.”
    Margot looked as if she’d been punched in the gut. She said, “It’s all right …” but you could tell from her face that it wasn’t. It wasn’t all right at all, and my heart was breaking for her. I just wish I understood what was going on, what had happened to cause this deep rift between her and her children.
    “It’s not all right,” Jack blurted out. “Sean, open your mother’s present.”
    “No, really, Jack,” Margot said, putting a hand on his shoulder.
    “Sean,” Jack said in a firm, almost threatening voice. He was turned halfway toward Sean, almost shielding Margot from her own son. Protective, and fierce, and very angry. My stomach twisted.
    Sean looked up and off to the side. “She’s just leaving again. I do not want her present.”
    A tear ran down Margot’s face, and then another, and then she started shaking.
    The rest of us were a frozen tableau, no one knowing how to react, when Jack stood up and walked toward Sean. “Sean, open your mother’s present. She came all this way to bring you a gift, and you’re hurting her feelings.”
    Sean stood up and faced his father and with hands clenched into fists at his side, he shouted, “Good! I hope I hurt them! I did not ask her to come here today! Why did you have to bring her here and ruin my birthday?”
    Mrs. Doyle shook her head and put a hand on Margot’s trembling shoulder, and Jack shouted, “Go to your room,